


ever the taste of your hope on my lips

by VerdantMoth



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Balinor Lives, First Kiss, Getting Together, Getting high, Grunhilda the Cat, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Makeouts, Modern Era, Plans For The Future, References to Drugs, Weed, Ygraine Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-30 01:07:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17214170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerdantMoth/pseuds/VerdantMoth
Summary: Grunhilda, far too fat and far too mangy to really be the pride cat of the Pendragon estate, is curled on Arthur’s bed between Merlin’s knees. Sometimes he thinks this horrendous beast is his favorite part of the sprawling greens and ostentatious manner. No one knows exactly where Grunhilda came from. To hear the elder Pendragon tell it, she simply slunk in a few weeks before Arthur was born. Feral and dirty and really unpleasant to anyone who wasn’t Ygraine.





	ever the taste of your hope on my lips

Grunhilda, far too fat and far too mangy to  _ really _ be the pride cat of the Pendragon estate, is curled on Arthur’s bed between Merlin’s knees. Sometimes he thinks this horrendous beast is his favorite part of the sprawling greens and ostentatious manner. No one knows exactly where Grunhilda came from. To hear the elder Pendragon tell it, she simply slunk in a few weeks before Arthur was born. Feral and dirty and really unpleasant to anyone who wasn’t Ygraine. 

Uther had been forced to bath the beast, only to discover her fur, a particular shade of grey that sometimes appeared a swampy green, was just as ugly with her fur clean and fluffy. Perhaps even more so. But then Arthur had been born and Ygraine took ill, and the mud-orange eyed cat took to protecting the squealing babe and his father like they were her own clowder.

  
When Merlin showed up in their lives, Grunhilda had cautiously taken to him, and then decided he needed her protection the most. 

She sit s between his knees, warm and soft, the strange rattling-engine purr sounding in the steril quiet of Arthur’s room. The door creaks but Merlin doesn’t shift, doesn’t move his hand from his eyes. He can feel the bed shift, the covers being tugged off him and sheets pulled from under him. Grunhilda doesn't appreciate all the movement. She hisses a teapot screech and swats at Arthur, who hisses right back.

When Merlin finally opens his eyes, he’s staring at Arthur’s blue eyes and Arthur is staring at his lips. “You always lay at the funniest angles, Merlin.” Arthur sighs. 

  
“This bed is its own planet, plenty of space for me to lie however.” Merlin retorts. 

The bed shakes with Arthur’s laughter. For a while all they can hear are Grunhilda’s heavy breathing and the tick of the ceiling fan and the occasional chirp of Arthur’s laptop. A quiet day, disrupted by the birth of summer; crickets and birds and mowers and the occasional shriek of a child free from classes.

“Balinor was home today,” Merlin finally says. He feels like he has cotton in his ears when he speaks, and he wonders if Arthur’s ears are similarly stuffed. Maybe he won’t hear Merlin’s confession.

But Arthur, despite his muscles and his tan and his blind loyalty, is no fool. He knows who Merlin is and why he climbs up the ivy and jimmy’s Arthur’s window. Why he sneaks into his room without so much as a text. “Have you applied to college?” 

Merlin stares at Arthur’s chin, reaches out to trace a finger over the stubble. It’s sharp against his fingers, grounding him to this moment. Arthur licks at his finger, bites it gently with a smile. “I don’t know yet,” Merlin finally answers. 

Arthur nods. He reaches out his own hand and traces Merlin’s cheeks, his smooth  jaw, the edge just below his ear. “Room smells nice,” is what he says. 

Merlin snorts, be he moves to the edge of the bed, dislodging Grunhilda who has had enough of them and flops to the floor and waddles her way to her bed. Merlin fishes a box from under Arthur’s bed, and tosses it at him. There’s still a little smoke slipping from the crease and Arthur sighs, heavily. “You just never learn, Merlin, how to properly snuff it.” There’s only fond amusement in his voice though. 

He takes Merlin’s half-finished blunt and sucks in a heavy breath, watches the end light up and holds the burn in his lungs until he has to cough it back up. 

“You  _ always _ hold it to long, Arthur!” Merlin chides. But he takes it from between his fingertips and takes his own heady breath in. Sometimes, being… something, with one of the richest kids in the village has its perks. The quality of the herb is top notch and doesn’t take nearly as much or nearly as long to hit him. He’s counting his breaths, and his heartbeats, not really focusing on the numbers, when it washes over him like a wave, 

The feeling starts at the crown of his head, warm and a touch tingly, and moves slow and lazy over his skin. By the time it has reached his toes Merlin feels like he is floating, and time has finally slowed down. He lets his head fall to the side, back to where Arthur is finishing the joint. Merlin watches him inhale, watches his eyes gloss over. This moment, he knows what comes next, so before Arthur can, he is moving forward and pressing their lips together. 

The angle is all wrong, awkward.  But Arthur slots his mouth over Merlin’s and exhales slow and steady, save for a small cough right at the end that pushes the smoke straight into Merlin. Normally Merlin backs away, or Arthur does. Now they both just hover, mouth’s slotted together and smoke trickling out the corners. 

And then Arthur licks into Merlin’s mouth, tongue tracing his bottom teeth, licking the remnants of smoke and lemonade and cinnamon toast from his mouth. Merlin is tousling his hands into Arthur’s hair, pulling at his head without really thinking about it. The smoke makes Arthur’s normally buttery taste a little more earthy, gives it the faintest trace of cinnamon. He’s pulling and tugging and battling without really thinking about what they’re doing.

When Arthur begins to shake above him, he gently pushes the blond away, stares into eyes glassy and blown. He blinks, and he thinks he’s supposed to ask  _ is this just the weed?  _ Instead he says “Got some homemade lemon mint bars in the bag at the foot of the bed.” 

Arthur laughs. His whole body shakes with it, the bed too. He laughs until he is doubled over, holding his belly, and practically sighing with it. When he’s finally mostly under control he twist so that he and Merlin are lying the same direction and he can hold Merlin’s fingers in his surprisingly calloused hand. “We just had our first kiss, a  _ grand  _ first kiss, and you want to tell me about snacks?” 

Merlin shrugs. Arthur’s other hand reaches up to cup Merlin’s jaw. He leans across and runs his nose along Merlin’s kisses along his jaw, up behind his ear. “What’s wrong, Merlin? Not like you to avoid a chance to call me bossy and entitled.” 

Merlin sighs and pushes Arthur off him. “Bal wants me to go to Durham, study Archaeology like him.” 

Arthur leans back. “And that’s not what you want.” 

Merlin reaches back and grips his hand again, traces all of the fine lines, his nails. “I don’t know what I want. Which means I never have a good enough reason to say ‘Really rather not,’.” 

Arthur nods. Merlin lets go of his hands and covers his eyes again. He can feel Arthur’s fingers at his hips, those strange patterns he always makes when he’s thinking. He doesn’t say anything for a while, and Merlin thinks maybe it’s because he doesn’t have an answer. It wasn’t fair to expect one of him anyway.

But then Arthur is shifting, is rolling so that his arms on Merlin’s chest and his chin pillowed in them. He’s heavy and warm, but also surprisingly soft. “You could bake.” 

Merlin purses his lips and gives Arthur a flat look even as he settles his hands on the small of Arthur’s back. He kisses blond curls and shrugs his shoulders. “Right, me, baking.” 

Arthur traces Merlin’s collar bone through his thin cotton shirt. “You don’t like the sun, or the sand. You don’t like that kind of sweat or being gone from your mum for too long and you hate dig sites. But you love the kitchen. You love your insane varieties of sugar, your spices. You love the feeling of dough under your nails- gross, by the way.” 

Merlin scoffs and presses his fingers into Arthur’s skin, but he doesn’t say anything. Arthur pushes up, just a little, so he can stare straight into Merlin’s eyes. “I’m serious, Merlin. Between Hunith and Ygraine, you’ve got some real talent with pastries and cakes. Pick a culinary school, study the craft, then open up a bakery in the little cottage Gaius left you. You said it’s got a nice parlor room and a grand kitchen from when he did all his herbal stuff. And by the time you graduate you should be coming into the money he left you, which won’t be a whole lot but it might be enough to start it up.”

Merlin thinks about it a moment, thinks about the money due him on his 23rd birthday. He thinks about the feeling of flower and egg on his wrist, the smell of tea worked into cookies, the spice of a coffee cake. “You’re always so much smarter when you’re high. Arty-Art.”

Arthur rolls his eyes. “Nah, that’s just the only time I’m not focused on propriety and decorum and social responsibilities.” 

“Is that why you kissed me?” Merlin ask. His voice is steady, bored almost, but his heart is pounding in his chest and his palms are sweaty against the top of Arthur’s bum. 

Arthur tilts his head and studies Merlin. There’s an intensity in them that makes Merlin itch; or maybe the high is fading. “No. I kissed you because you looked sad and I wanted to. I have wanted to. Just like I want you to stay here more often, and to text me when you’re upset and to let me  _ help _ you.” 

“Help me how?” 

“I’ve spent a lot of time in kitchens with you, Merlin. And I know we both know I’m no baker, but I’m good with business. So you stay in the kitchen and I do the managing.” 

“Are you offering to be my business partner?” Merlin asks.  “Yes.” Arthur answers, steady and sure. “And, if you’re interested, your partner in…  _ other  _ ways.” 

Merlin can feel his head growing heavy, the itched and the sleepiness that comes after a strong high. And he knows they have a lot to discuss about colleges and bakeries and parents and  _ them _ . But for now, he pulls Arthur, wraps his legs around him and kisses him like the sky is shattering and the ground is melting and the light bursting behind his eyes in the birth of a new galaxy.

In some ways, it is. But there’s always tomorrow to explore, so when Arthur finally pulls his mouth from Merlin’s when he nestles into the crook of him, and falls asleep to his heartbeat, all Merlin can think is how much that first kiss tasted like hope.


End file.
